I remember it as if it was yesterday: I was a fourth grader, trading Spice Girls cards during class breaks, watching way more TV than any kid should, when I saw the Spice Girls’ “Move Over” music video during the Super Bowl, in which the pop phenomenon shook their groove things in front of a Pepsi banner. From then on, no matter the place, my drink of choice was a “diet Pepsi”. I was The Next Generation, as the ad emphasized, and I drank Pepsi because it was cool, hip and [I believed] tasted better than a Coke.

In recent weeks there’s been a lot of talk about our society being a tad bit, oversensitive.  Living in the media world that is NYC you tend to be inundated with examples of stories that provoke this.  Stories about race, culture, sports, and of course the media world itself.

It’s a tough time to be a record label. Consumers are not buying records at nearly the same scale they did ten, or even five years ago. Albums that used to sell 700k copies in their first week are now selling 200k. Albums that used to sell 200k are barely making a splash. With piracy ubiquitous amongst millennials and the proliferation of free releases, some have said that recorded music has simply lost its value. For others, however, there is another way to monetize aside from touring, it just lies outside of the music industry.

Back in September, 2011, OgilvyEntertainment released the embedded video below:

[youtube NjazMfhZgzE]

When IBM’s Watson computer debuted on Jeopardy last year, most people saw it as a very cool and impressive gimmick. Yes, the computer could beat brainy champion Ken Jennings at his own game, but to many this just seemed like another example of computers being smarter than humans ­– a familiar concept to anyone who uses a calculator. Yet, through the buzz surrounding the show and the advertising that followed it, Watson became a brand. And IBM is using that brand to extend their impressive technology to other areas.